was broken the—well, the sort of passion that May and I had for each other vanished as clean as a whistle, and the one thing we both wanted was to stop you hurting yourself till you came to your senses! … Took longer with you, I suppose, since you let the thing hypnotise you more or less, from what you say; anyway, thank heaven it’s smashed and done for, and nobody else can suffer what we’ve been through. Now, with your permission, May, I’m going to gather up the bits of the thing and burn ’em.”
Maisie shivered as she watched the shovelful of fragments, carefully collected, placed at the back of the fire, then gave a sudden cry of fright—with a crackle the electric lights fused as a lean blue flame leapt roaring up the chimney. For a brief second it seemed that a huge wind, fierce and savage, swept the cosy room with a hot breath like the sudden opening of a furnace door, and the ghastly blue of the dancing flame lit up their white faces with an awful radiance, livid and terrible. The roar of the wind and the flames seemed to soar and scream as if something in frenzied, impotent rage shook an invisible fist at them, shrieking fury and baffled evil as it fled; then in a flash it passed as the blue flame disappeared up the chimney, and through the windows came peeping in the light of the fresh and wholesome dawn.
xxviii
